Urn to be returned
Owner of ashes accidentally left at Summerside Salvation Army Thrift Store found
The owner of a small, navycoloured urn discovered among a pile of donated goods at the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Summerside has been located.
Over the weekend, staff from the store posted the urn’s discovery to social media hoping to find the owner or a family member to claim it.
“I was contacted Monday morning by the cousin of the owner,” said Anna MacDonald, manager of the store located on Route 2 at the north end of the city.
“The owner originally saw my post on Facebook, but she doesn’t have access to a phone, so she messaged her cousin to reach out to us.”
It is believed the urn was donated by accident to the store after a load of donations were dropped off at the location.
“We started to process the items when one of our staff members all of a sudden came to me with this box and said, ‘Is this what I think it is?’ And sure enough it was an urn with what we believe has cremated human ashes in it,” she explained.
Terry Matthews was one of the staff members who found the object.
“It had caught my eye for some reason. So, I took to another one of the people who helps sort the items. Then they took it to Anna. I didn’t even know what I was looking at. But I’m glad we’ve been able to reunite it with people who care for it.”
MacDonald said there was one key piece of information about the palm-sized memento she didn’t tell anybody about in order to identify the rightful owner.
“It’s a bit different than other urns. So, I asked the cousin, ‘How does it open?’ She then went to the owner and asked the question. The only way they would have known the correct answer was if they were familiar with the object. As soon as she got it right it felt like a fist-bump moment.
“We’re happy we’ve been able to reunite this object with the right person.”
MacDonald says the owner, who moved to Ontario, didn’t mean to leave the urn behind.
“They had already left P.E.I. when their home was being cleaned out, so they weren’t there to claim the urn. They said they will be coming back to the Island in the coming months and will collect the urn then.”
For now, staff at the store maintain the object will be treated with respect.